EVENING. Health.

Fen-phen And Redux

Follow-up Study Finds No Major Heart Problems

November 16, 1998

Diet drugs pulled off the market last year because of their suspected effect on heart valves did not cause serious problems in a follow-up study, researchers said recently.

Dr. Julius Gardin and colleagues at the University of California at Irvine said they found only subtle differences in the heart valve function of about 1,000 obese people who had taken the drugs, known popularly as fen-phen and Redux.

They were compared with about 500 similarly obese people who took no drugs.

Gardin told a meeting of the American Heart Association that he found only subtle effects on the heart valves of patients who had taken the diet drugs fenfluramine and phentermine in a popular combination known as fen-phen and in those who had taken dexfenfluramine, sold as Redux by American Home Products unit Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories.

Patients who had taken the drugs for less than three months showed no differences in heart valve function compared with the patients who took no diet drugs and who were matched for age and other factors, Gardin told a news conference.